A BGE spokeswoman said power had been fully restored by 4:30 p.m. and the outage most likely had been caused by the extreme heat. The number of customers affected had been reduced to 443 by about 3:30 p.m.

"We had an issue with an underground cable in the area," Rachael Lighty said, explaining that distribution equipment can be affected when it is overloaded. "When it's really hot out, it can cause complications."

Heat indexes were as high as 107 in the Bel Air area and a heat advisory was in effect.

At about 4:15 p.m., Golladay said the college was trying to contact people to pick up day care and getting everyone home. He said there have been no heat-related issues reported.